Andy Jordan Productions presents ‘Hiya Dolly’, a scientific and musical retelling of ‘the most famous sheep in history– the world’s first cloned mammal.’ Written by Vince Licata, weare transported back to the late 90’s in the Roslin Institute and come to learn how Dolly came into this world.
Jessica Donnelly is stupendous as the adorable attention seeking sheep Dolly. Donnelly’s performance is full of humour and charm, engaging audiences throughout with her quick wit and heart warming performance. Mark Beauchampas Ian Wilmut provides a gentle nature as the pioneering scientist, illustrating the overnight fame that Dolly’s creation gave to him and the personal backlash this creates. John Fagan as Kieth Campbell, the hands that made Dolly, is head strong and delivers a well executed emotional performancealongside Beauchamp’s towards the end of the play. Alana Johnson, Justin Newell and Alice Wilkinson perform as the lab technicians involved in the creation of Dolly. Johnson’sblunt and aggressive nature in the lab paired nicely with sweetblossoming romance between Newell and Wilkinson’scharacters and provided great comic relief throughout. The hard working trio of actors present the world’s reaction to the discovery of Dolly through the many characters they play.
As an ensemble, the light hearted and fun nature of this castwere able to create some interesting characters and enjoyable musical performances which was entertaining for spectators.
Vince Licata’s script is scientifically educational and full of tongue-in-cheek comedy and provides long overdue credit and validation for the many lab technicians that went into the birth of Dolly and other successful animal cloning experiments in the last two decades. Andy Jordan’s direction conveys Dolly’s story well, and with the recurring use of direct address theaudience constantly feels close to the narrative. Due to some of the blocking choices, the stage space felt under utilised and more creative solutions could have been made.
Music Direction by Ciaran McGhee was well composed andthe clever use of lyrics brought a fun twist to the much beloved Proclaimer songs.
Overall, ‘Hiya Dolly’ was an energetic re-telling of the scientific discovery that impacted the world and real life consequences for the scientific team involved. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the learning more about the world’s most famous sheep.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2
You can see this production of ‘Hiya Dolly’ via the link below…
Theatre Scotland 
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